


Clean Thoughts

by jenna_thorn



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-10
Updated: 2008-07-10
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:53:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dating in a closed pool like Atlantis is complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean Thoughts

Ronon's kiss was shy, tentative. That was charming until she finally tipped him into bed and everything else was, too. She had the idea that sex with Ronon would be up against the wall, sweating and screaming and it turned out that he saved his energy for the gym. In bed he was too-careful, awkward and hesitant. He was beautiful, though, and hung like a god and she was holding out for talking him into lying back and letting her on top, so she put up with it, for three weeks of the missionary position every other night and his confusion when she tried to go down on him.

"But I'm hard."  
"Yeah, but… Look, it feels good, right?"  
"Well, yeah, of course. Sex is fun; babies are great." His grin was blinding in the darkened room. He wanted the lights off, she wanted them on. They compromised with candles and the laptop with the screensaver disabled facing a white wall. "But it's for, you know, getting ready. I'm ready, you're ready, let's go."

That was the beginning of it, but she really caught on when she realized that he'd snuggle behind her, pulling her in, one hand covering her breast, the other at her waist. Or, she realized, not _exactly_ at her waist. Crap. She drew blood on a regular basis and with her Norplant, accidental pregnancy wasn't a threat, so she hadn't brought up birth control. Unfortunately, she didn't work out all of the ramifications of that until seven hours later, which happened to be five minutes into pulling the shards of a wire conduit out of Zelenka's left leg.   
"How are you doing, Radek?"  
"Deciding if you've cut these so much as to be wholly unusable or if I have a new pair of shorts in my wardrobe."  
"To be fair, it wasn't all my cutting. A big chunk of fabric was actually in the wound."  
"Suffice to say, they are no longer lab appropriate. Should you be talking while…while doing that?"  
"I can multitask. So have you noticed what the Pegasus planets use for birth control?"  
"_Brevna Du!_ I didn't think it hit that high!"  
"Hunh? No, not you."   
"Then why do you ask?"  
"Hold still. Is the local wearing off?"  
"No, my discomfort is purely emotional."  
"What? Oh! No No, that's not what…I mean." She blew her bangs out of her eyes. "You are out in the field more than I am."  
He panted, then blew out a big breath, "May I take this opportunity to state that I have not been in a position to be concerned with it? I do not go through the Stargate for recreation or sociology. When I go into the field, something is already terribly wrong."  
"You go out all the time."  
"My point."  
She worked in silence for a moment, tugging carefully at a wire that had pushed into the muscle then bent, probably scratching the bone. Poor Radek. It must have been quite painful.  
"May I ask why…?"  
"Oh! Just wondering, really." Her answer sounded false even to herself. "Just thinking in terms of cultural differences."  
"The Wraith provide population control for most cultures and the ones who don't… well …"  
"Yeah, pretty much." She answered to the statement he didn't make. "Carson was delivering babies left and right with the Athosians were still on the mainland, before…well, before."  
"Culture shock would only be an issue in cross-cultural relationships."  
She snorted, "Everyone here is cross cultural." She pulled the suture kit open. "Think about it, Peagus and Milky Way is the obvious one, yes, but civilian and military is just as broad a divide. And then the fact that we are hierarchal, so it's not like I can…um…not that I'm …"  
He patted her on the head, oddly like her grandfather used to. "I have been here two years longer than you have. I have grown to appreciate the showers."  
She finished stitching him in silence, working out how to explain to Ronon that she had no interest in carrying his child.

The discussion didn't actually get that far. She started and didn't finish a half dozen sentences and he stared at the floor before they both went quiet. Then he headed off in the general direction of elsewhere and she went to the infirmary to stare at her laptop and daydream about his shoulders.

Rodney took her up on that beer. Also on dinner a week later, and an extended make out session that resulted in a tongue bit nearly through on her part and a innovation that shortened the time that the standard diagnostics took to run each week on his. After a while she decided that she didn't care what Sheppard said about the future that they'd already branched off of, and getting Rodney started on parallel universe theory sparked an evening she'd never get back, so she had no interest in discussing it with him again, but apparently it took the end of the world, or at least the end of Atlantis, to rein Rodney in, to make him think about niceties like towels on the floor and letting her finish a damn sentence and maybe the other her was more patient or maybe he was less, well, less Rodney. But in _this_ universe, she was either going to kill him or stay out of his way. Carter'd be pissed if she killed the Chief of Science, so she quit showing up at his rooms with a suggestive smile and two weeks later, Radek informed her that Rodney was pretty sure they'd broken up but he wasn't sure why. But Monday morning meetings went just fine and when she joined them at lunch, Ronon smiled up happily and Rodney didn't blush and so she figured she was okay.

Except for the whole involuntarily celibate part. That sucked. Seriously seriously sucked and maybe Radek's shower was better than hers because no way was this enough. Maybe she'd ask. The conversation of the thigh puncture had somehow made them girlfriends and she now knew more than she wanted about the personal habits of everyone in the main research lab, plus two marines and one botanist. Though he was complimentary enough about the botanist that she was seriously weighing the options of asking for a date herself. After all, her choices were a dick attached to a military mindset versus breasts in a garden. She knew what to do with breasts.

He just laughed when she complained about Rodney and his people skills and told her of the contortions that the research department went through to avoid being assigned to his projects and they spent a night laughing over every ex either of them had, one upping one another with foibles and mis-steps. Some of them were their own, and Jennifer cringed as Radek related the disastrous affair with his supervisor, just as he commiserated about her prom, where she was the kid, too young for socialization, dressed in pink ruffles and white Mary Janes, showing up alone, leaving early. They fell asleep on the couch, jarred to frowsy-haired wakefulness by the first of the Marines' morning drills.

But then came MX4 RT1, which she absolutely refused to call the Viagra planet even though everyone else did. Because Viagra didn't carry with it an emotional and mental imperative, didn't make her wipe away tears of frustration, leave her with hands shaking as she set bones and wrapped ribs. She pushed back on the need, no doubt, she thought dryly, honed by the mission imposed celibacy of the last two years, until she could finish, wrap the splint, check vitals and straighten, hands to the small of her back. And even that, now that she was no longer at work, just the touch of her own hands was too much and yet too little and she slid one hand into her own bra. That's when Major Lorne ducked in, his jaw clenched. She blushed, he flinched, and the sound of every single other person on the planet having sex filled the room. He stepped forward and said, "We need to get go …" and she said "Yeah" and for a moment she thought they needed to get to the gate, but no, Lorne clearly had other ideas in mind as he stepped close and he was too short, too military, too snap-to-attention and she had no interest in dealing with any of that but he was picking her up, pushing her back to the wall, the stucco of the hut rubbing through her shirt and she thought as he ripped the zipper down and dropped his tac vest to his feet, that this was what she'd been hoping for from Ronon, but Lorne would do, right now right here, as she shed her clothing so quickly that she scratched her legs, left red marks up her thighs, and the sting mixed with the hard grip of Lorne's hands on her hips as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he drove her into the wall, four, five six times and she came with a cry that was almost painful and he came with his teeth on her neck, silent.

Just as he stayed silent, referring to her as ma'am, as the villagers emerged to greet the sun laughing, used to the confluence of pollen and atmospheric irregularity, as the team who had been sent with her came out of huts, out of the grass, with torn shirts and muddy knees and fly buttons missing. No one laughed at the debrief, no teasing, no ribald jokes, and the season cycle was carefully marked and eventually others might go back, but she wouldn't. She showered under water as hot as she could get it and remembered his strength as he pulled himself into her and touched the mark that his teeth had made, and she sighed.

Then the south pier buckled and her infirmary was full, but not full enough, as they lost three, two scientists, one soldier, and she'd have cheerfully put people on the floor to keep from having to use the bodybags, but after twenty-four hours, Rodney was getting his left arm put into a sling and falling silent from the adrenaline rush that had carried him through. Lorne was in one bed with Zelenka laid out in the one next to him, both restrained and intubated, ivs clicking in tandem. Sheppard slouched in a corner, watching her watch his men and she spared him a smile.

"I need my second back, doc," he said and she patted Lorne's foot through the blanket.  
"As soon as I can, Colonel, I promise. Actually, as soon as he can. I'm not really a part of this fight from here out."  
"Yeah…um…speaking of you and him…Not that it's any of my business, but…"  
She could see, at the edge of her vision, Rodney look up, but she was missing something. "Sorry, John, you are going to have to give me the second half of that sentence. It's been a long day."   
"About the thing with…What I mean is … are you okay with …" he paused again.  
She blinked. "I'm not okay with people drowning in the halls of my city. I'm getting uncomfortably familiar with imposing medical comas. Am I getting close?"  
"Major Lorne?"  
"What about him?"  
"He's in a relationship."  
"Good for him. What is wrong with you?"  
"No, I mean, he's in a relationship and the …thing…on MX.."  
She couldn't help it. She laughed. When the hiccups started, she found a chair and put her head down and listened to Rodney explain how sensible she was.  
"Since when are you Dear Abby anyway?" he finished.  
"Shut up, Rodney, just because you don't notice how freaked out the people who work for you …"  
"Oh for god's sake, both of you shut up." To her surprise, it worked. They looked at her expectantly and she had nothing to say. She took a deep breath. "Rodney, he's being a team leader. You might take lessons." She poked Sheppard in the center of his chest and said "He's as much a victim as I am. Maybe more since he's clearly having issues with what happened, and I'm not. However, and to head off what will undoubtedly be your next concern, I have no intention of filing anything past what is already in the report. We had sex. It was unexpected, but consensual. Ish. Sort of." She took a breath and plowed on, "Third, to ease your mind, and with full recognition that it is absolutely none of your business, be assured that I do not plan to sleep with, or yes, I know, sleeping wasn't involved, but you know what I mean, _not_ sleep with, have _sex_ with, anyone under your command. Um … again. Or you. Ever." He blinked in what looked like honest surprise and she wanted to take the words out of the air and poke them back into her mouth. Rodney snickered. Oh yeah, that didn't help the situation. "Now get out of my infirmary, both of you." Which may not have helped any, but it made her feel better. She didn't want to have sex with Sheppard anyway. He probably required subtitles.

Two days later, Lorne came to while she was there, so before Carter came pounding through the door, she had a moment's privacy to remind him that they'd been drugged and that was the end of it. If she'd thought more than once about the power in his legs, holding them both up, about the rough scratch of the wall behind her, well, he didn't need to know about it. And now she'd as much as promised Sheppard that she wouldn't try again with Ronon. But Lorne smiled up at her and she patted his hand and yielded her space to Carter, then went to check Smitty's stitches. He'd ripped them open again and she was going to tie him to the bed and dammit, Smitty was in Sheppard's chain of command. No shower in the city was good enough. Maybe she could make an argument for a small personal massager.

Twenty four hours of excitement in the city meant forty-eight hours of panic in the infirmary, then a hasty four hours of sleep, a brief shower, and a meal eaten while walking. She came back from the gate room to find that the extra beds were being folded away, leaving Zelenka in the corner. She tossed the water bottle into the recycle bin, checked her computer, then settled onto a stool to rest two fingers against his wrist. The machine beeped, a reassuring metronome, but sometimes touch was more important than surety. He'd fluttered to consciousness a couple of times, enough to relieve him of the breathing tube. He was napping now, instead of sedated, and the difference was clear. His eyelids fluttered.   
"Hey there" she said, quietly enough to be ignored.  
Radek's eyes remained closed, but he smiled.   
"Want some ice?"  
At his nod, she fed him a few chips, watching him grimace.  
"The others?" he whispered hoarsely.   
"You are the last."  
"Good. How long?"  
"How long as in hours or as in Rodney freaking out? You've missed four temper tantrums, two diatribes against what the American schools are churning out of a sub-par system, a reprise of the the-cafeteria-is-trying-to-kill-me song, and one extended metaphor of the IOA as parasite, as in Wraith. That one was actually pretty good." She smiled as he did. "You need another blanket? Environmental controls are off, since … well… since the accident. They're working on it."  
"I'll fix it."  
"Tomorrow you can fix it. For right now, you stay in my bed."  
"Ah, if only," he smiled and she glanced back, but he was either asleep or faking it. She could wait until he woke.

Maybe she'd ask to try out his shower.

**Author's Note:**

> birthday fic for Beadslut   
> the prompt was this:  
> Oh man, watched Trio last night. I'm trying to decide if Keller's working her way through the contingent of Atlantis – like, the bit at Quarantine led to a one night stand with Ronon wherein she decided he was really too young for her, too, oh, let's say vanilla. He *has* to be on top, isn't comfortable with oral, whatever. So now (as of Trio) she's established that Rodney is single and will take him for a test drive.
> 
> To which she responded that she'd really like to see a convincing "Ronon is vanilla" story. But my love for Zelenka undermined my best intentions.


End file.
